Blog Post #4: Intercultural Communication

In December 2008, my sister got married to an American man (who also happens to be named Ben). The wedding was held in Grand Rapids, Michigan. My family and a few of my sister's friends flew over to the US for the event.

Although my family isn't very particular about our Chinese heritage, my sister decided that she wanted to inject certain local traditions into her American wedding, so she asked her friends to arrange the "wedding door game" for the groom and his groomsmen. For those who have not heard of it before, this involves the ladies of the house barring the way to the bride, and subjecting the groom to various challenges and obstacles to prove his determination to get the bride. The groom may attempt to bribe the ladies with "hong baos" to ease his entry into the house.

The groom had been informed that eight was considered an auspicious number, and had prepared his "hong baos" accordingly. He also heard that it might be good to prepare varying amounts in the different packets, in case the demands were higher than he expected. So when the first "hong bao" appeared, my sister's friends peered into it, and were rather dismayed to find 88 US cents inside.

I was with the groom's party at the time, so what follows is hearsay. I heard that my sister's friends were somewhat upset at the paltry amount. The packets which followed contained more, up to a maximum of $88, but it was not enough to assuage them. Apparently my cousin had to step in to make excuses on their behalf - "They're not from Singapore, they don't know what's appropriate" and so on and so forth.

I do think that the groom's party treated the whole thing quite lightly. The whole event was presented as a kind of cultural exposure for them, and a game of sorts, so they behaved accordingly. My family is generally quite blase about these things, and we were not bothered in the least. But my sister's friends are more connected with their cultural roots, and have probably played this game often, and had much higher expectations, and this led to some dissatisfaction.

This is clearly an example of intercultural miscommunication. I think that in Asian societies, we often peg our self-worth on our income, or the kind of house we stay in, and other indications of wealth. However, I believe that Americans place more value on athleticism and action-oriented achievements - that's why they respect all the jocks. Hence, they were happy to take on the various challenges placed before them, but didn't see the money as being a serious part of the game.

I guess that this was miscommunication on my sister's part, based on a lack of foresight. The two groups came for the same event, yet had different expectations of what the event entailed. This led to conflict.